Goals

The main task of the research group is to deepen the knowledge of the statistical methods and methodological skills used in the institute and increase the methodological expertise of quantitative research methods. Along with the personal research projects, the members of the group are responsible for planning and implementing research projects together with the other researchers in the institute. The other task is to maintain hardware and software with the modern computer technology by supporting the use of micro computers and by providing equipment, software and instructions.

Research areas
The educational research methodology is an expanding area and, for a small group, it is necessary to concentrate to the most important methods on this field. The advanced statistical methods need a lot of work to be fully understood. Only to understand the assumptions and the purpose of the model needs research work and practical experiments. Different applications of the same model need a larger understanding and, at the highest level, modifications of the model, and to develop a better model need a huge amount of work. Some new models, for instance, the path models and multilevel models, in which the development is very fast, it takes time and resources only to keep up with the fast developing knowledge at the international level. The very important research areas for the institute are: 1. The sampling methods in the school surveys

2. The multilevel models of school data 3. The path models with intra-cluster correlation 4. Item analysis in the multiple choice tests Sampling theories and their practical use in school research are a common subject for all researchers in the group. All methodological research projects are working more or less with problems resulted of the complex sampling design such as the intra-cluster correlation, the homogeneity/heterogeneity of a sample and the sampling error etc. The item analyses include all models from the classical analysis to the IRT-analyses.

Importance
In the evaluation of the educational achievement, the instruments and the precise use of methods are of the most importance in planning and implementing a survey. In the international projects the precision of the measurement has increased from study to study on all areas. The full understanding of this implies that the skills of using both the sampling and statistical methods are at the international level. The deep knowledge of these methods is one strength of the institute.